Beauty conglomerates may have seen sales soften last year, but shoppers’ continued appetite for newness will drive product trends into 2025.
Inspired by influencers and celebrities like Hailey Bieber and Sabrina Carpenter, shoppers have been building fragrance collections (and embracing lower-priced mini bottles), stocking up on viral K-beauty-inspired skincare like milky toner and moving toward a more glam hair and makeup aesthetic, abandoning the minimalist look that had taken over beauty. Beyond new products, they’ve also been developing new habits, such as layering perfumes and watching men’s beauty tutorials.
According to Larissa Jensen, senior vice president and global beauty industry advisor at insights firm Circana, fragrance was the “category of the year” in 2024 and the fastest-growing heading into 2025. In the first nine months of 2024, fragrance saw 14 percent sales growth, followed by hair (8 percent), makeup (5 percent) and skincare (3 percent).
Less successful, however, is the mass category at large; with the exception of E.l.f. Beauty, most mass brands continue to see flat demand after raising prices amid inflation. On the other hand, premium labels have generally kept prices “relatively flat,” said Jensen, which has led to a convergence between the two that’s convinced some spenders to level up.
“There’s been significant price increases across all beauty categories in the mass side, and really, their dollar growth continues to be driven primarily by increases in average price,” Jensen said. According to her, this is creating a “sweet spot” for the masstige category. “Markets are kind of meeting in the middle.”
With TikTok’s fate in the United States still uncertain, there are many unknowns when it comes to the trajectory of beauty trends in 2025. Without PerfumeTok or HairTok, it remains to be seen whether viral fragrance crazes and men’s GRWM-style content will take off on Instagram or YouTube, or if more Instagram-friendly trends — like Carpenter-inspired glam makeup — would prevail.
Fragrance Fans’ Multiples Mindset
Gone are the days where a fragrance shopper buys just one signature scent. PerfumeTok has propelled an explosion of interest in collecting fragrances and even wearing more than one at the same time. Seventy-three percent of Gen-Z and Millennial customers use three or more scents regularly, and 69 percent layer their fragrances, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey. According to a TikTok spokesperson, the hashtag #perfumetok saw 110 percent year-on-year growth in the first 10 months of 2024.
That trend has been a major factor in fragrance’s strong performance heading into the new year. Fragrance influencer Paul Fino predicts layering will continue to rise in popularity; he’s already been gifted layering-focused launches set to be unveiled this year. Brands like indie favourite Phlur are also publishing layering guides on their sites and selling gift sets of multiple fragrances designed to be used at once.
For young and price-conscious aspiring perfume collectors, that means a continued interest in more diffused products like body sprays and scented lotions as well as mini versions of luxury fragrance, the sales of which grew three times faster than full-size in 2024, according to Circana. TikTok’s spokesperson said discovery sets were a major driver of a fourfold growth in sales of fragrance on TikTok Shop in 2024.
“Not everyone can afford a full size luxury fragrance, so they’re indulging in smaller sizes,” said Jensen, who also remains “bullish” on body sprays thanks to Gen Alpha.
Milky Toner: The K-beauty-to-Bieber Pipeline
Combining a popular K-beauty product category with the power of Bieber’s influence is a proven formula for liquid gold on TikTok — or in this case, milk.
“Milky toners,” which have a consistency between a typical liquid toner and a serum, took off in 2024 as products with the word “milk” in the name emerged on the market at a rapid pace. They’re still on the rise going into the new year.
The viral Glazing Milk from Bieber’s Rhode was one of the brand’s original products and still frequently appears in her GRWM videos as well as those by trendsetting influencers like Katie Fang. Now, more brands are launching these toners at all price points, from makeup label Violette_fr’s Boum-Boum Milk for $64 and Ilia’s $58 The Base Face Milk (the brand’s top-selling skincare product) to drugstore brand Byoma’s $16 Hydrating Milky Toner.
“When you think of a toner consistency, it’s thinner, but when you use a milky toner, it’s a lot thicker. For people with dry skin, like me, it feels more refreshing on the skin,” said Fang, the TikTok beauty influencer credited with driving trends such as Gen Alpha’s obsession with Drunk Elephant. Fang’s first milky toner post was about the Laneige Cream Skin Toner that’s been around since 2018, but she soon got into Rhode’s one-year-old Glazing Milk, which she said is her current favourite.
Interest is only set to grow in 2025. “Milky toner” is Spate’s number one skincare search term for predicted growth; it estimates searches will rise by 58.9 percent over the next year. It’s just one of several examples of K-beauty-inspired products rising in popularity – Spate’s list of its top 10 predictions for the top-growing skincare trends of 2025 is full of K-beauty products including snail mucin, Korean sunscreen, collagen patches and more.
Beauty Takes Gen Alpha Seriously
A year ago, discussions of Gen Alpha’s emerging beauty shopping habits were mainly borne of concern over children using age-inappropriate skincare ingredients like acids and retinol. But it hasn’t taken long for brands to recognise these young beauty shoppers’ spending power: Circana found that families with kids are spending more on beauty than those without. As a result, Gen Alpha-focused launches are set to take off in 2025.
The founder of Millennial-pink hair-care brand Monday, for example, launched rainbow-coloured Gen Alpha hair brand Daise at Ulta Beauty; it will enter Target in February 2025. And in recent months, Ulta Beauty described Gen Alpha as a source of growth at its investor day after launching its Mini Brands toys for that generation. Nordstrom added “young adult” beauty displays in its juniors sections.
Brands popular with Gen Alpha like Drunk Elephant, Byoma and Sol de Janeiro all have one thing in common — bright, candy-coloured packaging. With that, beauty shelves are beginning to see a rainbow effect. While not explicitly geared toward a specific generation, both hair-care brand Eva NYC and acne skincare label ZitSticka launched rebrands in recent months with rainbow-coloured boxes and bottles.
Men’s HairTok Spurs Sales
On Spate’s list of the fastest-growing hair-care search terms going into 2025, “texturising powder” is the top product-related term. The primary source of its fame? Men tuning into beauty tutorials on TikTok.
“We’ve seen significant interest for this product for the male consumer on TikTok, because content features male creators using texturising powder,” said Addison Cain, beauty strategy and innovation manager at Spate.
Men’s hair care has been a hot topic on social media, with content around slowing hair loss or improving hair volume — which texturising powder is said to enhance — proving especially popular. Men’s hair search terms also made their list into Google’s Year in Search report for 2024, which listed “alpaca hair,” “warrior haircut,” “low fade haircut men” and “broccoli head haircut” as top trending hair-related search terms.
The trend has helped open the floodgates for men consuming beauty-specific content as influencers with flowing hair or shorter curly looks style their hair with blow dryers and then add the texturising powder to mattify their hair at the end. One major factor incentivising posts is revenue from TikTok Shop links, which were included in 85 percent of videos featuring texturising powder, according to Spate. The question for 2025 is if male hair-fluencers would keep their rising relevance in a post-TikTok landscape.
Bringing Back the Bombshell
The reign of ultra-minimalist makeup appears to be coming to an end. While the return of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show left some reviewers underwhelmed, there’s no doubt that “bombshell” beauty looks — voluminous, curly hair and a glowing makeup look — are back. New forces, however, are propelling its resurgence.
“Sabrina Carpenter vibes are very much a thing,” said Instagram’s head of beauty partnerships Kristie Dash. “The big, bouncy 1990s blowout was obviously trending all year, but is fully a thing now, and going into 2025, will still be a major trend.”
Carpenter has been a force behind shifting focus from a minimalist “clean girl” look to a more glam aesthetic. Named a celebrity face of Prada Beauty in 2024, she helped generate demand for its colour-changing lip balm as well as drive trends in blush and hair products. “How to style Sabrina Carpenter bangs,” was on the list of Google’s top trending hair tutorial search terms for the year.
Beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira, who has been one of the top holdouts against the clean-girl aesthetic, welcomes a return to more exaggerated makeup looks.
“It’s almost five years since Covid, where all that clean makeup, no-makeup started, and now we’re back in the swing of things where we can go full-glam,” she said.
